Archive of Our Own ^beta

Randy was perched half leaning, half sat on the hood of his car. He had been out here for over two hours now, with no specific time frame as to how much longer he would be here.
Marcus, Hayleigh's husband, was a cop. He had let it slip at last week's family dinner. Had dropped a bomb right before dessert without even meaning too.

“You hear they're letting that psycho out?”
It had clearly been directed at Randy during a lull in conversation. As much as he tried for Hayleigh's and the kids' sake he struggled to get along with Marcus, the two never really clicked, even after Marcus and Hayleigh had been married for almost ten years now conversation between him and Randy was always strained.
“Who,” he'd asked distantly, envious of his niece and nephew’s ability to just get up and leave the table when they had gotten bored.
“You know the nut job that shot up all your coworkers.”

Randy felt the floor go out from underneath him and was thankful that he was already sitting or he was sure he would have fallen over.
“I didn't know that,” Randy said automatically, his mind reeling, taking his brain longer to catch up with what Marcus had said, to understand what his body had already comprehended.
Bensons getting out.
Randy could still hear the silence that had followed, it felt like minutes but was probably only seconds before his mom had suddenly started clearing plates away even though no one had finished, muttering about ‘that awful man’.
Hayleigh had kicked Marcus under the table, looking at Randy like she was trying to decide what he was thinking.
Randy was glad that his nibblings had already grown bored of their food and were off playing in the other room, not wanting to face the questions that would come from curious minds. For his part Randy did his best not to react at all, the way he always had when certain topics around a certain day were brought up, pushing his emotions down to deal with in private.
He didn't have to see if he succeeded in his nonchalance because right then Anna, Hayleigh's oldest who just turned eight appeared from the other room demanding Randy come play Mario cart with them and what's an uncle to do with an offer like that.

He had thought and hoped that that was the conversation dropped until Hayleigh called him early this morning, probably before the kids were even up.
“You're going to see him aren't you?” it wasn't really a question and Randy had never been good at lying to his little sister.
“Yeah,” is all he said. What else was there to say when she already knew him inside and out.
“Mom's going to freak when she finds out.”
“What doesn't mom freak about?” Randy retorted, earning him a slight chuckle from his sister. It was a little harsh he knew, his mom worried because she loved them and now she had two grandbabies to spread that worry between she had eased up on Randy a bit, that and he had moved out of state so he only had to deal with her worry over the phone or when he made it back for family dinner every few months. “Besides, im 42 years old she cant tell me what to do anymore,”
He could hear Hayleigh sigh as time passed quietly between them “Just be careful, please,”
“Yeah I will,” Randy relented.
He didn't think he was in danger, didn't believe anything bad was going to happen but he didn't have the energy to argue with her today, not that it mattered much the call had been cut short by some emergency or another on her end.

But that was hours ago, now he was standing in front of prison gates and waiting, sun beating down on him. Louisiana summer in full swing. He took a drink of water from the bottle he was holding, screwing the lid back on and throwing it through the open window of his car when he heard the first set of gates open. He took a breath and then another, stealing himself.
He’d done this once already with a prisoner who was decidedly not who he was waiting for but he had had a brief but enlightening conversation, with a man called Maddog, who had a tattoo of a cobra twisting over is face, while he waited for his friend to arrive and pick him up.
Randy watched as a figure obscured by the chain link fence walked towards him. The second gate rattled open, almost painfully slowly, revealing Benson.
It had been twenty years since Randy had last seen him. Twenty years since Randy’s one and only visit before Benson cut off all of Randy's access to him and the prison.
It was like something out of a dream, Benson standing there sun beating down on him, sweat forming on his forehead.

Truth be told Randy never thought he would see the other man again. Benson was older of course, crows feet around his eyes more pronounced, gray streaking through his hair that was longer and shaggier then it had been when Randy last saw him hanging just above his shoulders. To Randy's surprise he still had a goatee, perhaps a little less well kept then it used to be but a part of Randy that he wasn't fully aware of until that moment had almost expected Benson to have a full beard. As if he had been stranded on a desert island for the past twenty years and not incarcerated. He supposed as far as Randy was concerned he had been; completely cut off and unreachable.
All in all he looked good, like really good. He had clearly been taking care of himself despite the circumstances.
It occurred to Randy then just how much time had passed. He knew how long it had been for him, everything that had happened to him over the years but a part of him had always seen Benson unchanging. He didn't look like the same man that had given up and decided to end it all with suicide by cop. He didn't even look like the same man, he was a few months later when Randy had gone to visit him, so bitter and full of rage at having survived and now looking down the barrel of a life sentence. But at the same time he did, the way he held himself reminded Randy of how he was when they worked together, the calm indifference he held himself with.

He wore the BBB pants he had on that day and a plain looking shirt, the material appearing more paper than fabric.
The paramedics had cut his shirt off of him that day, his brain helpfully supplied. He didn't remember that, so much of the days that followed that particular Saturday were fuzzy. He remembered his hands covered in Benson’s blood as he tried to keep it inside him, screaming for someone to help. Three bullets. One in Benson's shoulder, a mirror to Randy’s, another in his abdomen the third had grazed Benson's head. At the time Randy hadn’t let himself look at that, too afraid that if he did he would see Benson’s brains splattered across the tarmac. He looked now though, to see if he could spot any semblance of a scar but if it was there Benson's hair was covering it. The chartreuse cardigan was nowhere to be seen.
Benson hadn't noticed Randy yet, too busy glaring at the sky, as if the sun was a personal affront to him.
Randy took a shaking breath unclenching his fists where they hung at his sides, he almost never did it any more at least never enough to leave marks like when he was younger but clearly today's nerves were threatening to get the better of him.
“You don't call, you don't write,” He crossed his arms over his chest feigning calm. Drawing Benson's attention to him, “And then I have to find out from my brother in law that you're getting released,”
A myriad of emotion passed over Bensons features, recognition, annoyance, confusion, acceptance, a few others that Randy wouldn't dare to guess at.
“Randy? The fuck are you doing here?”
Randy smiled, dipping his head and looking up at Benson through his eyelashes. Something in the pit of his stomach warming at Benson’s voice and Randy’s name being the first thing he said as a free man.
“Thought you could use a ride,” Randy said, the casual tone coming easier and more playful, twirling his car key around his index finger, “Unless you’ve got another option,” he looked down the road leading up to the prison for show, there were no other cars around.
Benson hesitated slightly then huffed a laugh, walking the rest of the way to Randy and the car. “Yeah suppose I could,”

-----

Randy was here. Why the actual fuck was Randy here?“Yeah suppose I could,” Benson said, a smile playing at the edge of his mouth trying to sound calmer then he felt as he opened the passenger side door.
Randy looked good too, a little twitchy maybe but it was Randy so that was to be expected.
Benson watched as he walked around the front of the car to the driver's side, hands slowly unclenching at his sides.
He was still thin but built with more muscle now. He wore a light purple polo shirt that hugged around his arms and brought out the icy blue in his eyes.
Benson strapped himself in, watching Randy do the same from the corner of his eyes, trying not to stare.
Randy let out a breath seeming to steady himself. The veins in his arms became more pronounced as he took the steering wheel, muscles flexing slightly with each movement as he started the car.
Bensons mouth went dry. Fuck he had been inside too long.
He turned away, winding his window down, allowing the wind to whip at his hair and face as Randy began to drive. He needed the distraction.

“Benson,”
Benson had completely zoned out and from the slight inflection in Randy's voice he had been trying to get his attention for a minute.
This was all so weird, too fucking much for him to take in. He never thought he would get parole, didn't believe it was happening in the weeks and months leading up to this moment, not until those gates opened and then to top it all off Randy was there. It felt like some kind of fever dream. He would wake up at any moment in the infirmary, with the flu or food poisoning or some shit.
But it wasn't a dream and Randy was looking over at him from the driver's seat expectantly, cool blue eyes burning into Benson, before turning back to the road.
“Sorry what?” he mumbled.
“I said where do you want me to take you?”
The question felt loaded, more than it should have. Where could he go?
“My parole officer set me up with some crappy apartment downtown,” he didn't want to go there, couldn't think of anything worse than facing the empty apartment, especially with Randy in tow.
He had nothing, no belongings, just the clothes on his back from the day he was arrested and an old wallet with twenty dollars in change in it.
His shirt was long gone, thrown away by some hospital orderly twenty years ago. He chucked his cardigan when the guard handed it to him with the rest of his stuff, too caked in his own blood to keep.
He'd been there twenty years and had mostly kept his nose down, which had earned him a small amount of respect from some of the guards, which was apparently worth jackshit and the disposable scrub shirt from medical one of them had grabbed for him.
He would have to get clothes from somewhere, furniture too when he gets a paycheck. He has a small amount of money saved from prison labour work but it's not much even after twenty years.

“If you don't want to go there we could go get something to eat,” Randy must have sensed Benson hesitation about the apartment. “Or we could go to my hotel if you want to freshen up first,”
He couldn't tell if Randy was sincere in the offer, he sounded somewhat hesitant. Benson couldn't really blame him for that, he had been Benson's hostage once upon a time after all.
But Randy looked to be doing pretty well for himself, nice clothes, his car was far from new but it was in decent condition so it stood to reason the hotel wouldn't suck either, at the least it would have air con, hot water and maybe even half decent pressure. Which from the little he had been told about his apartment, it probably didn't have that.
Randy was a grown man, he could make his own decisions.
Benson cricked his neck “Yeah okay,”
“Okay,” Randy echoed, nodding slightly.
They fell into silence for a bit after that, the only sound the engine and the wind whipping through the open windows.
Benson couldn't stand it, it had been a long time since he heard that kind of quiet. Inside there was always something, so many people around, even after lights out it was never fully silent. Guards doing the rounds, his cellmate snoring or jerking off, other prisoners getting into fights. The only time things were ever truly quiet were before something bad was going to go down. Before a riot or a planned attack by other prisoners who thought you owed them something. Calm before the storm and Benson hated it.
The way Randy's hands were silently fidgeting and tapping the steering wheel, so did he.
“Got any music?” Benson asked, when he couldn't stand it any longer as Randy turned into town.
“I can turn on the radio,”
“I ain't listening to some top 40 bullshit,” Benson huffs. Earning a small smile from Randy. It surprised him, he didn’t think he'd ever seen Randy smile like that before, soft and at ease, not even in the year they had worked together had he ever looked that light.
Twenty years was a long fucking time. He wasn't the same guy he was back then, why was he expecting Randy to be? And wasn't that a whole part of his twisted delusion about that day to get Randy to be more like this.
“Sorry, I don't have aux cable, my sister is always taking the piss of me for it but I just don't really see the point,”
“I have no clue what the fuck you're talking about,” Benson admits, trying to keep his tone light and ignore the twinge in his stomach. A reminder of how much he has missed. He knows fuck all about this new world he's about to live in.
Randy's quiet for a minute. Then he smiles looking over at Benson.
“I think there might be some CDs in the glove compartment,” he shakes his head a little. “I don't know if they're any good they belonged to a friend,”
Something in the way Randy says friend has Benson thinking he means ex.
He opens the glove box, picking through the small stack of CDs, expecting a bunch of newer artists he's never heard of before.
Beetles, Bay city Rollers, Fleetwood Mac, The Osmans. Christ! He huffed a laugh. “Your friend has the taste in music as my Ma!”
Randy laughs a bit too and the sound of it makes Bensons stomach drop like he's some kind of fucking school girl with a crush. He pushes the feeling away pulling a CD from the stack. Fuck! it, it's better than nothing.
Randy's quiet for a minute as the music starts and then he's looking over at Benson from the driver's seat, his shoulders tense.
“I…” He starts and Benson cuts him off he knows where this is going.
“Don't say you're sorry or some shit Randy, it was a long time ago,”
It still hurt to think about even though it had been a long time, not that Benson would admit that. It had been just him and Ma for so much of his life and then less then a year onto his sentence she up and died.
“How was the funeral?” He asks, the words sticking in his throat. Despite the time that was hardest, it had been so soon into his sentence that he hadn't earned enough good will or whatever the fuck the people in charge were looking for to be allowed to go to his own mothers funeral.
Ms Beard had arranged the whole thing. She had been visiting Ma the months Benson was inside, helping out sometimes too. Part of him hated her for it, getting to do what he couldn't. But now mostly he was glad Ma wasn't alone at the end. That at least she had someone.
“It was nice you know, kinda small,” That tracked Ma didn't exactly have many friends.
“Her sister came in from out of town,” Randy looked like he was thinking, biting his bottom lip slightly. “And your Dad,” he added hesitantly.
“What did you think of him?” Benson was genuinely curious. He didn't really have many strong feelings for his father one way or another. Not anymore he was long past that.
“He was …” Randy flexed his hand on the steering wheel, thinking. “He felt like he had one foot out the door the second he walked in,”
Benson chuckled.
His father fancied himself as a con artist but he wasn't charming or smart enough to ever pull anything off. So instead he was a small time crook that was better at deluding himself then anyone else.
He'd taken off when Benson was eight with big promises of making his fortune in Vegas and sending for Benson and Ma when the time was right. At the time it had stung. Leaving Benson to pick up the pieces of Ma his dad had left behind and leaving Benson alone and vulnerable to other forces.
Now he could recognise that It was a miracle he stayed as long as he did. Benson hadn't heard from him again until he was almost fifteen, when he had crawled back into their lives asking for money only to disappear again when he realised Benson and Ma didn't have any to give.
Benson had seen him a couple of times as an adult but it was always the same pattern. He never stuck around for more than a couple weeks and Benson could never bring himself to care.
“Sounds about right,”
“Did he come and visit you?,”
“Couple times after Ma died, had all these big promises about writing and visiting,” Benson shrugged “lasted about a month,”
That had been the last time Benson had seen him. He could be dead for all Benson knew, not that it mattered to him.
They drove the rest of the way to Randy's hotel in an amicable silence. Fleetwood Mac playing quietly as they drove.

-----

The silence that followed the click of the hotel room door closing was oppressive. Randy wasn't even sure what he had been thinking, inviting Benson to his hotel, but the look of dismay Benson had given Randy at the idea of going to his own empty apartment had the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.
The room wasn't much, just a small room with a bed and a desk, a bathroom off the entry with a closet opposite it and a balcony barely big enough for the two deck chairs that sat on it. But it was clean and air conditioned so Randy couldn't complain.
He placed the brown paper bag from the back of his car on the desk.
Benson was further in the room, past the bed and looking out the window. The view wasn't anything special, three floors up and facing a low building, most of the city blocked by it but it was still probably an upgrade from the view Benson had had for the past twenty years.
Randy cleared his throat drawing Bensons attention to him.
“Bathrooms through there,” he indicated to the only other door that didn't obviously lead to the balcony or closet.
Benson smirked, raising an eyebrow. A look that said yeah! I fucking figured that.
“I got you some stuff,” Randy pushed the bag towards Benson, who was glaring at it like it might contain a bomb and this was all some part of a twisted revenge plot planned out by Randy, but Randy was probably reading to much into a single glance at a bag that lasted less than a second.
“Just some basic stuff, clothes, toothbrush, cigarettes, wasn't really sure what you would need,”
Benson pulled the bag the rest of the way across the desk in front of him. Randy had spent days fretting about if should pick anything up for Benson at all before deciding that it couldn't hurt to get some basics.
“I quit,” Benson said with a smirk taking the packet of cigarettes from the top of the bag.
“Really?”
Benson scoffed, turning the box over in his hand a few times before putting it on the desk. “Fucking expensive hobby to have inside, especially if you don't have someone to add to you commissary every month.”
“Yeah I should probably quit too,” Randy smirked, leaning against the desk and looking over to Benson to gauge his reaction. He didn't know what he was looking for, shock, approval.
“You smoke?” Bensons disbelief was written all over his face but just underneath there was something else that Randy couldn't place.
“Picked up a lot of bad habits over the years, I guess,” Randy suddenly felt self conscious under Bensons gaze like he could see why Randy had started smoking in the first place.
Randy had gone to visit Benson once while he was in prison, just a few months into his sentencing. It ended badly, Randy didn't know why but after Benson had taken Randy off his visitor and call lists and told Randy he would chuck any letters he sent without reading them. He never offered an explanation.
Nothing exceptional happened during the visit Benson hadn't talked much, Randy had talked to fill the silence about nothing in particular but out of the blue at the end Benson had lost it, yelling at Randy. He'd analysed the visit again and again in his head trying to piece together what he could have done wrong and always drawing a blank.
Randy had spiralled after that, reckless decision after reckless decision, with himself as the punching bag. He'd started smoking then. He needed to feel close to Benson, feel what he felt, taste what he tasted.
He hated it at first, that first drag he had, pulled over at the side of the road a few minutes away from the gas station he bought them from. The same gas station he and Benson had gotten gas from on that day.
Coughing and spluttering his way through the first cigarette, his lungs burning. He forced himself to have another and then another until he was retching into a ditch. He kept coming back though repeating the cycle until it became second nature to him. He'd eased up over the years but had never managed to quit completely.
Benson made an agreeable sound picking up the bag. “I need to wash that place off of me,”
“Yeah, of course,” Randy tried not to feel dejected at the sudden end of conversation. Moving out of Bensons way and sitting on the bed watching him as the other man made his way to the bathroom. Followed by the slide of a lock and shower running soon after.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Randy started pacing he hadn't planned for this. He thought he would drive Benson to his apartment or wherever he was living, maybe order take out or go to a diner. He wasn't sure what he had planned when he went to the prison that morning. Part of him had entertained the idea that Benson might punch him or straight up refuse to acknowledge he was there but he hadn't planned for this.
He went out to the balcony grabbing the cigarettes as he did, he didn't smoke often but if there was ever a time it was now. His hands were feeling twitchy and shook as he lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs and his nerves begin to calm. He checked his phone, he had a text from Hayleigh.

Hayleigh: seen him yet?
Randy: yeah

He hesitated for a second before adding.

Randy: we're at my hotel now

His phone rang just seconds after he hit send.
He stamped out his cigarette not even half finished.
Part of him regretted sending the second message, the other bigger part of him that was actively trying not to freak out about the fact that Benson was showering in his hotel bathroom less than ten feet away was glad to hear his sister's voice.
“What the fuck Randy! Do you have no survival instincts?”
“Hi Hayleigh, how are you?” He asked as nonchalantly as he could. Going to sit back on the bed, closing the balcony door behind him.
“How am I?” Hayleigh scoffed, making Randy smile. “Well my morning has been great, Marcus is working nights which means I'm basically a single parent right now, Anna has a school play in a week dress rehearsal is tomorrow, and she decided not to tell me about until today so I'm currently making a sheep costume out of old pillows, I'm pretty sure baby Ra has chicken pox, half his class is out with it,” baby Ra was actually six but had been also unfortunately dumped with the family moniker of Randolph, poor kid, to avoid confusion and because it felt weird calling a baby Randolph he had been dubbed with the only slightly less unfortunate nickname.
Randy could already feel himself relax at the sound of his sister's voice, hearing her talk about the chaos involved with his demanding niblings.
“Oh yeah and,” she adds the foe after thought “My masochistic brother has invited a murder who abducted him to his hotel room!”
Randy sighed, falling back to lay on the bed.
“So a pretty normal day then?”
“Yeah pretty normal,” she laughed slightly, before taking a breath, Randy gave her time, “Where is he?”
“In the bathroom, he's showering,”
“This is fucked Randy!”
He couldn't deny her that, he wasn't completely unaware of how insane he must seem right now.
“Yeah maybe,” he heard the shower shut off. “I should go, he will probably be out soon,”
“I just need you to be careful,” the strain and worry in her voice was evident.
“He's not going to hurt me,” and Randy believed it more than anything. It had been twenty years, Randy wasn't the same person he was then and neither was Benson. Even back then Benson hadn't been Benson not really, that whole awful day heightening the worst parts of him and even then he had never wanted to hurt Randy, not in any real way.
“What about tonight or tomorrow after he leaves and your feeling sad and rejected so you invite some creep over to beat you up and fuck you,” he could hear the anxiety in her voice.
Fuck he'd done this, inflicted this worry on her.
“Cus the next thing I know I'm getting a call and have to explain the my kids that their uncle has died of autoerotic asphixiation and what the fuck that means!”
Randy's heart sank. “I haven't done that since I was in my twenties, besides I was never into choking,” the second half of that sentence was a lie but he didn't need Hayleigh worrying about that too.
“You haven't seen Benson since you were in your twenties either,” she retorted. She laughed something dark and sad then. Tears stinging the sides of Randy's eyes as he tried not to cry.
“Like any of that matters Randy, we're not talking about you being kinky, this is about you using other people to hurt yourself.”
He wished he never told her that.
In the aftermath of Benson cutting him off and after smoking hadn't been enough. Randy had still been in school living at home while he went to the community college. He had started going to bars picking up rougher looking older guys to rough him up a bit before they had sex.
Randy's stomach turned thinking about that time when he had been so desperate and alone. It wasn't healthy or safe. He'd known it then but he didn't care. Not until he had snuck home in the dead of night bumping into his sister. It had been bad that time too. He wasn't even sure how he had made it home, broken arm, split lip, a fractured rib. It had been clear the guy was more interested in beating Randy up then fucking him but by the time Randy realised it had been too late.
He had broken down crying at Hayleigh when she found him. Telling her everything. She was only fourteen, more put together then Randy had ever been. She had driven him to the hospital, got him fixed up and made him promise not to do it again. He hadn't.
He never even questioned who taught her to drive.
“I'm not going to do anything stupid,” Randy said now, the words feeling inadequate.
He heard the sound of the bathroom lock and the door opening.
“I have to go, I love you,”
Hayleigh sighed “Love you too,”
He hung up the phone.
“That your girlfriend? Wife?” Benson asked, a sly smile playing at the corner of his lips as he leant against the desk, opposite Randy. Wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans Randy had bought him. His hair still damp and beard trimmed leaving him looking lightly tousled in a way that had Randy's heart clenching.
He sat up to look at Benson as they spoke.
“My sister,” a smile playing on his own lips. He had a feeling they'd played this game before.
Benson nods I'm acknowledgement.
“You seeing anyone?”
“Not really,” Randy started. “I mean no,”
Benson raises an eyebrow at Randy. “Not really or no?”
“No,” Randy says more firmly this time. “There was someone it was on and off for a while but it's off now and staying that way,” Randy didn't really have much of an interest in rehashing his most recent break up with Benson.
He looked over to where Benson was now practically sitting on the desk, arms crossed over his chest.
Thinking for less then a second before adding. “He turned out to be kind of an asshole,”
Benson's hand went up to his face scratching his beard just barely covering the shit eating grin that was threatening to take over his features.
“He huh?”
Randy sighed rolling his eyes “Yeah. He,”
Benson dropped his hand from his face, the shit eating grin breaching containment and taking over.
Benson looked good when he smiled, younger, lighter, Randy had thought it twenty years ago and he thought it again now.
“Fucking called it,” Benson laughed.
Making Randy smile. He liked Benson’s laugh.
“Yeah okay,” Randy said feigning annoyance, trying to suppress his grin.
“So how long did it take you figure out that surprising bit of information,”
Randy ignored the sarcasm, looking away from Benson and to a very interesting mark on the floor. Hoping Benson wouldn't see the embarrassed flush creeping to face.
After that day, Randy would have the same dream, it repeated constantly for months, leaving Randy waking up in a sweat, screaming Bensons name. He never had the heart to tell his mother who would rush into his room and worry over him that it hadn't been a nightmare. He'd never told anyone. It didn't take long after that for Randy to come to the realisation that he was gay. That his relationship with Lisa had been him passively going along in an attempt to be normal.
Randy coughed, trying to shake off some of the awkwardness he was feeling.
“Probably longer than it should have,” he admitted. “So did you want to go out to eat or..?”
“This place do room service?” Benson asks after a beat. Making Randy wonder if he wasn't ready to face the inevitable crowded lunch rush of any diner they visited right now.
Randy nodded, opening up the room service app on his phone and holding it out to Benson.
“You've got be fucking kidding me,”
Randy shrugged. “Yeah I know, worlds gone to shit, we speak to robots more then actual human beings,”
They ordered food, Randy showing Benson how the touch screen of his phone worked, which only resulted in Benson threatening to chuck the stupid fucking thing out the window twice.
Benson had sulked off to the window after his disagreement with the phone. Brooding against the glass.
“So what about you?” Randy asked, leaning back on his elbows, trying to bring back a bit of the earlier levity.
“What about me?”
“You seeing anyone?”
Benson scoffed, but turned to look at Randy. Randy didn't miss the way Benson’s eyes scanned over him, pausing slightly on his midriff where his polo shirt had rolled up slightly, before meeting his gaze.
“I'm not your hostage anymore Benson,” Randy added, swallowing the lump in throat. “Conversations usually go two ways,”
Benson sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I've been in prison for the past twenty years, the fuck do you think Randy?”
“I think there are a lot of lonely people out there that end up marrying convicts,” Randy teased.
This at least earns him a smile, even if it is joined by an exaggerated eye roll.
“Fucking creeps and psychos the lot of them,”
Randy cocked an eyebrow. It was a non answer if he had ever heard one.
“So that's a no then?”
“That's a no,” Benson grabbed the tv remote, turning it on and sinking into the chair by the window. He flicked through the channels, stopping on some old war movie, ending the conversation.

-----

“You’re not married,” Benson says through a mouthful of burger, he had all but inhaled the first half of his meal but now he was carefully watching Randy across the desk they were both using as a table and prodding him with questions. “I'm guessing no little rug rats running around somewhere,”
“No,” Benson had already pressed Randy on his mom and sister, so he wasn't really surprised by the question.
“So what the fuck have you been doing for the past twenty years Randy Bradley?”
Something about Benson using Randy's full name sent a shiver through him, he sighed trying to mask it,
“I urh went to college for a while, studied journalism,” He pushed the rest of his fries away from himself, his nerves were shot today and didn't have much of an appetite, Bensons steely gaze wasn't helping.
“I dropped out after a year,” he added and laughed awkwardly.
Benson didn't laugh, he was hanging on every word Randy said
“How come?”
“I was surrounded by asshole 18 year olds and professors who didn't take me seriously but that was whatever, I guess one day I just realised that nothing had changed, I was still in Kutzburg, still living with my mom so I just packed up my car and I left,” It had been around the time Hayleigh had found out about the guys Randy had been sleeping with too, it had been a wake up call to how miserable he was, how stuck he felt but he kept that to himself.
Instead he told Benson about his time traveling, the shitty motels, taking whatever jobs he could just to get by, how freeing it all was. He never said no to an experience, hiking, cave diving once but never again, he'd probably visited more museums and art galleries in those few years then he had the rest of his life combined. And Benson hung on every word.
“I started writing for myself then too, sharing some of it online for no reason other then I could,”
Privately he wrote about Benson, about that Saturday that changed everything. He still had it all somewhere but never showed anyone.
“Why'd you stop?”
“Got offered a job for a magazine in Pennsylvania. The editor had seen some of my work and I'd been traveling for almost 4 years, I guess it felt like a sign, like it was time to start putting down some roots, make some actual connections.”
As much as he loved traveling Randy had gotten lonely, the friends or boyfriends he had never lasted more than a couple months. He left it unsaid but could tell Benson knew.
Even after all this time it felt as if their paths still ran parallel to one another. Not the same but a reflection almost.
Benson hummed in acknowledgement.
“You happy?” he asked after a minute, the sincerity of the question taking Randy off guard.
He got lost in the intensity of Benson's gaze, blue eyes like storm clouds over the ocean and is hit with the realization that he can't lie to him.
“Mostly,” he says his voice hitching slightly and when all that gets from Benson is the slight raise of an eyebrow he adds. “I have a job I actually enjoy, I love my sister and her family and I have some really great friends but…”
Benson's completely still, his eyes still bearing into Randy and Randy can't take his off Benson either.
“But?”
“I guess I always keep everyone at arm's length no one can ever understand, either I don't tell them about that day and I feel like I'm lying to them,” most of Randy's friends back home don't know about what happened with him and Benson, right now they all think he is helping a high-school friend move.
“Or I tell them and they think it's this huge tragedy with me at the centre of it,” Randy regretted his choice of words the second they left his mouth.
Benson was on his feet before Randy had a chance to say anything else. Grabbing Randy by his shirt and shoving him against the wall with a thud.
“What was that if not a fucking tragedy Randy?” Benson spits. Their faces inches from each other.
He missed this Randy realised with a twisted thrill. That day Bensons hands had been all over Randy, holding him close in one way or another and Randy had missed it having Benson this close.
“I killed four fucking people unprovoked, it was fucking tragic!”
Randy winces, annoyed at himself for his poor choice of words but also at Benson's whether deliberate or not Randy isn't sure.
Three he thinks unwilling to let the words pass his lips. Only three of them were unprovoked.
At least that's what he long since suspected.
In the aftermath of that day all he did was replay it in all its gory detail over and over again. He could see Benson’s face so clearly, the way it had changed during and after his run in with Shepard, broken and lost a far cry from the elated mania that had been at the beginning of the day.
Randy might not have known what Shepard had done to Benson but he could guess. He had made his peace with the fact that maybe he would never know. That was Benson's to share or not.
But even without knowing Randy would bet that Benson's attack on Shepard wasn't unprovoked.
He didn't say any of this to Benson now, his hands still scrunched in Randy's polo, pressing him against the wall, mentioning Shepard now would only do more harm than good.

“I didn't mean it like that,” he breathed, his heart pounding in his ears. “I meant it wasn't my tragedy not in the way people think when they hear about it,”
Silence passed between them Benson's grip on Randy remaining firm as he scoured Randy's face, for what Randy couldn't tell.
“Why the fuck am I here Randy?!”
“Because you saw me,” Randy says simply, as his breath mixes with Benson from the proximity.
“You were the only person who was actually looking so you saw me, for me, for who I could be not who I was,” he swallowed the lump in his throat, Benson’s grip loosening slightly.
“That day was awful, it was! Probably one of the worst of my life but you saved me Benson, if it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for that day then, then I'd probably be living on the same street as my mom, married to some poor girl she set me up with, in a dead end job that I hate, I'd be miserable,”
His hands remain unmoving at his side, a desire to touch Benson threatens to overwhelm him, to run his hand through Bensons hair and pull the other man to him. But that's not how they do things at least not how they did and that's all Randy has to draw off of. Benson touches, Randy talks, so Randy keeps talking.
“You're here because it might not have felt like it at the time but you saved me Benson and I needed to see you, so I could tell you that,” he swallowed hard, Bensons fists flattening against Randy's chest
“I can't even imagine what that day must have been like for you, the aftermath of it,”
One of Benson’s hands slid up Randy’s chest resting on the side of his neck.
“I wanted you to let me die Randy,” His thumb marks a trail down Randy's jaw, making him shudder, they're too close for Randy to hide it. It reminds him of Benson wiping tears from his face.
“I know you did,” the image of Benson lying on the ground, bleeding out, a part of him wanted to sink into the sidewalk and let it happen, it's what Benson wanted and they'd been doing what Benson wanted all day
“I couldn't,” he added almost as an apology, he couldn't stand the idea of seeing someone else die that day, let alone Benson.
“I know,” and it sounds almost like forgiveness.
His hold on Randy is all but gone, one hand resting lightly on his chest, the other absently rubbing circles below his jaw, Randy could easily shake Benson off if he wanted too. His feet stay planted where they were, eyes focused on Benson. A crease in his brow like he's thinking about something. Benson's eyes flick down slightly for a second hungry and searching.
“I'm glad you didn’t,” It's barely more than a whisper, Randy can only hear it because of their proximity, hardly louder than the soft puff on breath that comes after.
Benson closes the distance between them then, slowly at first to give Randy enough time to move if he wants to but he doesn't.
The single moment seemed to stretch on for hours before Benson’s lips reached his.
He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about what it would be like to kiss Benson. Even before that Saturday his mind would slip to it on occasion, a fantasy he had scarcely allowed himself to acknowledge. Benson’s calm presence, a reassuring constant at the job Randy loathed, never pushing him into conversations he didn't want like Carla or Donnie, never trying to humiliate him like Chris. Just there silently taking over the till if Randy needed a minute after dealing with a particularly harrowing customer. Strong and unmoving, completely untouchable.
Until he'd moved and Randy got to see the broken mess of a man underneath it all. Devastatingly human. Wild and out of control in a way Randy had never allowed himself to be and once the shock of the day had worn off it was exhilarating.
That's what kissing Benson was like.
Tentative at first, a brush of lips just enough that Randy could shove Benson off if he wanted but Randy hadn't. Instead he took it as permission, taking control like Benson wanted him to all those years ago, hands tangling in Benson's hair pulling them together, a clash of lips and teeth. Benson’s beard scratched the soft skin of Randy's neck, causing a soft moan to escape him but he was already too far gone to care, all his thoughts consumed by Benson.
His hands toyed at the hem of Benson's t-shirt grazing the skin just underneath as the other man kissed his way back up to Randy's mouth. Hot and sweet and Randy hoped that Benson could taste how much he had wanted this, how he had thought about it constantly for the past twenty years and hoped that maybe Benson had wanted it that long too, he thought that he had, it felt like he did.
Benson pulled away slightly, breaking the kiss. Randy didn't have time to feel embarrassed by the dejected sound he had made or the way he tried to follow the kiss after Benson broke contact before he grabbed Randy by his shirt and pushed him onto the bed. Standing over Randy with a soft, amused look or his face, eyes wild and lips kissed pink.

Randy's breath hitched as he watched Benson pull his t-shirt over his head, one swift movement that had Randy marvelling at the expanse of soft flesh and coarse hair.
Randy followed suit, Benson on him again before he dropped his polo to the floor.
Straddling Randy's hips, and looking down at Randy both their chests heaving. Pressing their bodies together, Benson's skin burned where it met with Randy's.
One hand in Randy's hair the other on his hip holding him in place.
Randy's hands roamed Benson, trying to commit him to memory by touch.
Benson's stomach was soft but there were muscles underneath, muscles he could feel on Bensons back shifting as Benson kissed Randy's neck again, the tickle of his beard dizzying against the soft skin of Randy's collar bone.
Benson froze, his breath hitching. His hand dropped from Randy's hair, hovering just above his shoulder.

Randy was terrified Benson was about to pull away and didn't think he could handle that after how long it had taken them to get here.
He wrapped his fingers around Bensons hand on his hip, cementing him in place and following the line of Bensons gaze.
The knot of mangled scar tissue in Randy's left shoulder, left over from a bullet wound. Benson's hand ghosting over the top of it but not quite touching.
Oh It would have healed better if Randy had let it, but he had messed with it daily making it bigger and uglier than it ever would have been otherwise, blaming it on thrashing around during nightmares whenever he was asked about it by doctors.
He wanted to be marked by Benson on the outside, permanently altered and changed by him in a way Randy could see.
Now all he could see was Benson, the guilt and shame written so clearly across his face, but there was something else underneath it all too, something Randy recognised, something hungry and possessive.
He liked that Randy was marked by him even if the guilt was overriding it right now.
Randy sat up gently, not wanting to spook Benson still straddling his hips.
He ran his hand that wasn't holding Benson in place through the other man's hair. He briefly wondered if Benson had any plans to cut it now he was out. Randy didn't think he would mind one way or the other.
He placed a tentative kiss on Bensons shoulder. Far softer than anything they had shared so far.
It seemed to startle Benson out of whatever spiral he was currently circling, his eyes meeting Randy's.
Randy smiled something soft but still suggestive.
Gently dragging his teeth over the corresponding scar on Benson’s own shoulder.
“Looks like we match,” he hoped Benson understood him. You marked me, I marked you. Randy might not have been the one to pull the trigger but he had called the people that did.
They were irreversibly changed by one another, outside and in.
Bensons eyes darkened, laughing humorously as Randy dragged kisses across his collar bone, using far more teeth then Benson had, hoping it would leave a mark however temporary.
“You’re fucking twisted Randy, you know that?” Benson’s voice hitched slightly as he stifled a moan.
“Well,” Randy pulled away slightly, just enough to see Bensons face, his hands running through Benson’s hair holding him in place.
Like this Randy could feel the scar that ran across Bensons skull hidden by his hairline. “My first real crush was on the guy that took me hostage so I guess that tracks,” he probably would have felt insecure saying something so open with any of his exes but this was Benson. He needed to know that Randy had wanted him all this time and had never stopped.
Benson smirked the desire Randy felt echoed back to him.
He was kissing Randy again, pressing Randy against the bed, his hands roaming towards Randy’s belt.

-----

Later after the sun had set Benson woke up, sitting carefully so as to not disturb Randy where he lay sleeping peacefully beside him. Stretched out on the bed like a painting, a dark bruise forming on his hip where Benson had held him too tight.
He had a scar on his arm that Benson hadn't noticed before. On the underside of his bicep, three little dots. They looked like cigarette burns to Benson, he had few of his own long since faded, left over by one of his Ma's exes, a couple made by himself too.
He was transfixed by them. A need to know if they were self inflicted or the product of someone else.
He needed to know everything about Randy. To peel back the layers and find out every dirty and horrible thing that had happened to him in the past twenty years. To crawl inside and make himself home with what was left.
He was fucking sick.
Benson got up.
The cigarettes and a lighter were on the nightstand. He grabbed them and went out to the balcony, pulling on his pants and closing the door behind him.
He lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply.
He was fucking twisted! This whole situation was and he didn't want to take Randy down with him. Not this time.
He lent against the railing as he smoked. It was far from cold by any means but there was a slight breeze cooling the humid night air and helped to clear his mind.
The door behind him opened. Benson didn't look up.
“Thought you quit?”
“Old habits I guess,”
The silence hangs heavy between them, heavier than it has all day. Benson’s aware of Randy beside him lighting his own cigarette, before sitting down on one of the chairs.
“What's going on Benson?” Randy asks, after a minute. His tone far calmer than Benson feels.
“That was a mistake, it shouldn't have happened,” he doesn't look at Randy no matter how much he wants to. Forcing his gaze forward to the lights of the city.
“Did you not want to?” there's a slight hesitation to his tone this time. Benson signs.
“Of course I wanted to,” how is that even a question. He's wanted too for longer than he's dared to admit. Even when they were nothing more than coworkers. When he had spent every hour of his working day watching Randy, studying him.
How much simpler their lives would have been if Benson had just started up a conversation with Randy instead of blowing all their coworkers to hell. But Benson was done dwelling on the past and things can't change, at least he thought he was.
“If I wanted it to happen and you wanted it to happen then it wasn't a mistake, we don’t have to do it again but it wasn't a mistake Benson,” there's something so sure and final in Randy's tone. It sounds almost alien to Benson. He doesn't know what to do with this new confident Randy he's been getting glimpses of all day.
Fuck him and act weird about it apparently.
Benson takes another drag of his cigarette, exhaling slowly.
“This is fucked Randy, you have to know that,”
To Bensons surprise Randy laughs. Benson watches as he drops the rest of his cigarette in the ashtray before coming to stand beside Benson. Their shoulders brushing together.
“Yeah I know,” Randy's only wearing his underwear, something Benson just now notices and thinks he must be cold in the night air.
Randy sighs.
“Of course I know this messed up Benson, I know that nobody would understand it if they found out. My sister would try but wouldn't be able to. It would probably kill my mom,” Randy chuckled darkly. “but I don't fucking care what other people think, I don't know what’s going to happen, tomorrow or in a month or a year.” Randy hadn't moved to touch Benson anymore then he was with their arms pressed together, their shared warms burning from just their shoulders. But Randy's eyes were on him with a resolve Benson had longed to see in them back then.
“I might not know what this is but I don't regret it Benson, I won't,”
He wants to listen to the other man. Pull Randy to him and kiss him until they can't breathe.
But Benson has spent the past twenty years thinking about the myriad of ways he might have fucked up Randy Bradley's life.
But now Randy's life doesn't seen all that fucked up but what if this makes things worse and Benson ruins everything.
“How could you want this?” how could you want me? went un said.
“You know I was so mad at you,” Randy says, pulling his eyes from Benson and looking out over the city. “for such a long time. Madder than I'd ever been at anyone, I didn't understand how you could just cut me off like that,”
Good Benson thinks against the twist in his gut, it's better if you hate me.
“But then one day,” Randy adds, slowly running his hand down Benson's forearm, where it's resting on the outlook of the balcony. Making Benson's breath hitch in his throat from the contact.
“I was hiking, with this group of people I'd only known for like two days and we stopped for lunch by this waterfall, everyone was talking, laughing, it was beautiful,” Randy's hand stopped just short of Bensons own, his thumb absently tracing the vein off Benson's wrist.
“And I realised, you didn't want to tie me to you the way I was tied to Miss Beard and Kutzburg. You wanted me to be free,” he all but whispered the last bit, leaning into Benson's side and his lips Brushing against Bensons shoulder as his head came to rest there.
Benson grunted an agreement not trusting himself to talk, his heart hammering in his chest. At how easily Randy had picked apart the decision Benson had toiled over for weeks.
The final straw had been the visit, Randy chatting about his life that had hardly changed, his mom and his sister, babysitting Miss Beard’s kid for Christ sake and his next planned visits to Benson.
Benson was trapped in that place, would probably be for the rest of his life, all he wanted was for Randy to be free, free him, free of Kutzburg, free of all that shit.
So he yelled at him, told him to leave him alone, revoked his visitation, everything.
Randy had cried as he left. It seemed fitting to Benson that that be how he last saw Randy, tears streaked down his face caused by Benson’s own malicious words.
Except it wasn't because now here he was, Randy strong and put together and for whatever reason leaning into Benson.
“You were wrong you know,” Randy says, not taking his eyes off the city before them. As if he can tell that Benson would completely crumble if he saw Randy's face. Everything he thought he pushed away and dealt with over the years, brought to the surface by soft blue eyes, maybe it already was.
“Because it didn't matter where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, there was always this part of me that was tied to you, I know you felt you it too,”
Benson turned to look at Randy then, sudden enough for Randy to drop his wrist and Benson immediately missed the contact.
“How are you so sure?” He tried to make the words sound bitter and angry, easier to fall back on but all it sounds to Benson’s ears is a pathetic wine.
How can you be so sure that I felt that way too? How can you know that the past twenty years have felt like part of me wasn't stuck in that prison but out in the world living? How could Randy know that in his darkest days inside he would spend them imagining what Randy was doing, what kind of life he had, just picturing Randy free was enough to tide him over. How could Randy know that in his darkest days inside he would spend them imagining what Randy was doing, what kind of life he had, just picturing Randy free was enough to tide him over.
“We're both here aren't we?” Randy smiles, moving closer to Benson but not reaching for him again those brilliant blue eyes meeting Benson's.
And fuck! maybe that was enough that inspite of everything here they both were, alive and finally fucking free of everything except maybe each other.
Benson kisses Randy, his hands cradling Randy’s face, Randy’s circling around Benson’s waist and holding him there.
The hunger from their previous kiss was gone, no drive to it other than to be close to Randy. To make him understand that all he's wanted all this time is this, whatever this is and maybe neither of them know and that's okay.
Whatever it is, they can figure it out together.